John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

As most of you know, I’ve been blogging about EMR and Healthcare IT for almost 8 years now. This was well before Facebook was more than just a website for college students. The word Twitter had not even been uttered. LinkedIn was basically an online resume with very few social features and Google hadn’t really even thought about doing anything social. Myspace was certainly around battling with the likes of Hi5 and Friendster, but they weren’t really great for business (unless you were in the music business).

Think about the explosion that happened with social media over a 3-5 year span. Facebook went mainstream. Twitter blew up. LinkedIn became social. Google launched Google Plus and bought YouTube which is pretty social as well. It was a really exciting and fun time to be participating in what we now call social media. At the time we honestly didn’t know what it was going to become.

As I think back on the development of these social media platforms, I ask: “Where’s the next social media platform?”

You could certainly make the case for some more recent entrants to social media like: Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, and even SnapChat. At a recent conference I heard someone say that Instagram is the new Facebook. I can see this happening for many people, because the best part of Facebook was people’s pictures. Of course, Instagram and Vine have already been bought by Facebook and Twitter, so we’ll see how those platforms grow from here.

My problem is that I haven’t found the image and video focused platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine to be great platforms for something like healthcare. Sure, there are niche areas of healthcare that do really well with images and short videos. Although, most of those are also essentially an extension of Twitter or some other social media platform. I would like to see what someone as creative as ZDoggMD could do with an instagram or vine account. I just don’t see the masses being able to really influence healthcare IT using those platforms.

One platform that’s really interested me lately is YouTube. While not a new social media platform, I feel like it’s been reimagined thanks to things like G+ Hangouts. While hangouts aren’t perfect, they’ve made it simple and effective to create videos for distribution. I believe in the platform so much that I’m creating a whole Fall schedule of EHR and Healthcare IT video interviews.

I just wonder what social media platform will come next. Have social media platforms reached a form of maturity that they’ve covered all our communication needs? When you think about the forms of communication: text, picture, audio, and video, all of the current social media platforms have these covered. Is there something that’s still missing from social media today?

One area I’ve been thinking a lot about is mobile. Could a mobile social media platform be a game changer? We already do many of the above social platforms on mobile devices, but could there be something about mobile that makes a new social platform unique?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Will we see new social media platforms come?

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

I usually don’t like to do two funny posts in a row (see the Meaningful Use Rap that Katherine posted), but I couldn’t resist. When I saw this it was too funny. I also considered whether it was ok for a very serious blog like EMR and EHR to post about Pee. Although, I figured this is healthcare where most are more familiar with pee than the rest of the world. Even though I’ll never forget the labor nurse with my first child calling it “she she.” We still call it that in our home.

Regardless, if you’re looking for a way to explain all the various social media platforms, here’s an interesting way to look at it (Source: vanished-omen):

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

I find it interesting that I was sent another EMR YouTube video. No doubt YouTube can be a great tool for getting the word out, but so far the views on EMR videos are pretty low. However, I must admit that this video by GE Healthcare is much more interesting than the previous meaningful use video I posted. Plus, they focus on physicians number 1 concern: productivity and reimbursement. Take a look for yourself.

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

We’re getting more and more meaningful use details each day. No one should say that there isn’t a lot of information out there about meaningful use. Yet, I’m guessing there are still a LOT of physicians who still know little about meaningful use. McKesson’s even created this YouTube video explaining the Meaningful Use Final Rule. I can think of a few million YouTube videos I’d rather watch, but if you prefer video to reading, this video does give a general overview of many of the meaningful use final rule details:

UPDATE: Check out another meaningful use video that is definitely more exciting than the previous video (albeit with a little less content). However, it’s under 3 minutes and has music to keep it light and interesting. Thanks for sharing it Michelle. Although, I do wish I could embed the video on here.